Remarketing vs Retargeting: Defining a Strategy for B2B Lead Conversion

One in five marketers now has a dedicated budget for retargeting. (InvespCRO)

Once someone leaves your website, all hope of converting them is not lost! Companies can and should recapture attention for their products and services. Acquiring new B2B leads is often costly. Additionally, B2B leads have long purchase journeys. Therefore B2B marketing teams can help convert more sales for a lower cost-per-lead (CPL) by giving attention to leads already in their funnel.

Oftentimes B2B companies fail to capture a lead right away because of one of these reasons:

• The timing is not right
• The value proposition is not relevant
• The conversion offer is not compelling enough

Retargeting and remarketing campaigns can overcome all of these obstacles by presenting value over time and allowing new offers and reasons to convert into a sales lead. Sometimes the perfect sales opportunity just needs a little “nudge” with something more relevant and centric to their needs.

Remarketing vs Retargeting: What’s the Difference?

Remarketing generally refers to a wide range of activities, including retargeting, that seek to recapture attention and information from known leads or website visitors.

Some remarketing strategies include:

• Launching targeted advertisements specifically for potential buyers already known to you (also known as retargeting). These lists of visitors are often captured by including a “pixel” on your website from platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Running email campaigns to existing leads, presenting further value and conversion opportunities
• Using social media and social inbox tools like LinkedIn InMail for known leads and target accounts
• Updating the content on your website to reflect the needs of return visitors

Depending on the kind of audience you want to remarket to, different kinds of campaigns may be more or less appropriate. For instance, using social media and targeted ads can be used throughout the funnel. But email is only appropriate (and legal) once someone has freely given their email address to you. Oftentimes the medium of the remarketing campaign is not so important as the messaging and value you utilize.

Take cues from your lead list and try to get in their minds of where they are in the purchase journey. Then you can show the most relevant value. If someone’s already visited your “Request a Demo” page, target them with content in the decision-stage and assume they are browsing different vendors. Therefore instead of sharing light topical blog posts, you might share case studies or different pain points alleviated by a demo.

Remarketing vs Retargeting: What’s Right for a B2B Strategy?

As a B2B company, you probably have a goal for how many leads you convert each month. Once you have a starting point of website visitors or lists of leads (whether you purchased or inherited them), it’s good to start running a remarketing campaign.

[Pullquote] By being lean with the way you run remarketing and retargeting ads, you can gain insights that help you reliably hit your monthly goals.

Testing a range of remarketing (and retargeting) strategies is the only true way to know what works for you. You will develop your own set of “best practices” by experimentation and iteration. So to get started, you may want to invest in:

• An email drip campaign for new leads who have not become sales opportunities
• A retargeting Google Ads search campaign with a limited test budget
• An InMail campaign for a small list of high-value target leads, promoting a new content offer

Much like the agile marketing approach, testing across platforms with micro-budgets can tell you quickly which platform, message, and offer is resonating best.

In particular, always test different value propositions to see what works. For example, if a list of people visited your Pricing pages and then left, they may just not be clear on your value for them vs. the cost. You can take advantage of this insight to run different ads with case studies to show your value for similar companies. Or you can test retargeting ads with refined, tailored value propositions based on information you’ve learned about their needs and challenges.

Conclusion

In the debate of remarketing vs retargeting for a B2B marketer, both strategies can be effective. The only way to know for sure is to run tests. But with all of your tests, follow these best practices:

• Be conscious of your information on these leads and strive to be relevant to their challenges, goals, and their place in the funnel
• Test buyer-centric value propositions across multiple platforms
• Pay attention to analytics for highest converting campaigns and low CPL, then scale what works

Remember that B2B lead conversion is a long game, so the more strategies you have in place, the more touch points you’ll have during the critical buying process.

Sources

Invesp CRO, “Ad Retargeting in Numbers – Statistics and Trends”